15 May 2009

Clamp and Legal Drug

So my local comic book store had some of this manga called Legal Drug in the half-off rack, so I figured why not. Not knowing much about the Clamp artists, I figured I'd give it a try. Any English manga in 1st edition with volumes 1 and 2 isn't a bad investment in my book.

After reading a few chapters, I was became confused about the marajuana leaf and the references to drugs that the cover pages showed. The chapters involving Kudo and Rikuo have nothing to do with drugs (other than working at a pharmacy, that is)! They ought to have just named the series 'Kuno and Rikuo', at least going by the first few volumes, that is.

It seems that the fans at TP ar craving more, and the wikipedia page for Legal Drug claims that the story is only 1/5th told. If there isn't enough general interest from manga readers to tell the rest of the storyline with twelve more volumes (only 3 have come out since '05), then why not make just one or two more super-packed volumes to please the diehard fans that they hooked?

From the little bit that I've read, I don't think I'll purchase any of the other Clamp series... the storylines are well-written, but the graphics can be much better I believe. Sometimes it just seems that there is just too much white on the pages, when they can show a better story with maybe fewer pages and fewer images that are well drawn and say a lot more.

Just my thoughts after reading the first seven chapters of Legal Drug...